Of the sectors held by the French two were particularly hard—that of Hill 1248, north of Monastir, and around the city, and the eastern part of the Cerna loop, which presented features similar to those of our own sector. The other French sectors were extremely uncomfortable, as was indeed the whole of the Macedonian front, but less dangerous from a purely military point of view. The Monastir area was exceptionally hard, inasmuch as the town exercised a peculiar fascination over the Bulgars—to them it was the symbol of Macedonia, the Mecca of their Balkan aspirations; indeed almost the only territory not yet occupied by them to which they laid claim, and which they had reasonable hopes of acquiring. They therefore maintained a relentless and vigorous pressure on those lines in the hope of breaking through and achieving not only a strategic victory of considerable importance, but also a highly significant moral and sentimental success. The German Command at one time was anxious to withdraw from the Monastir area altogether, but the opposition of Bulgaria to this plan for once prevailed. The struggle round the town therefore continued with great violence, and the troops on Hill 1248 had to keep a ceaseless vigil, sustain perpetual attacks or deliver counter-attacks, and were always under the fire of heavy bombardments. Monastir itself suffered severely as it sheltered various staffs, and also many batteries of artillery.

The A.F.O. front was reached by railway to Armenohor (the station for Florina) or Sakulevo, and thence by road and décauville to the first lines, but supply trains at night went almost into Monastir. For the troops west of the Pisoderi pass a “telepheric” line was used for supplies, but it sufficed only for a small part of the necessary materials, and the rest had to be conveyed by lorry or cart. The two divisions in the eastern half of the Cerna loop were supplied by the same routes as those used by the Italians. The H.Q. of the A.F.O. was at Florina, a pleasant little town at the foot of the Pisoderi pass, well watered by many runnels and adorned with trees. The troops of the Premier groupement (122nd Division and Greek units) were supplied by the Vardar railway to a certain point, and thence by road.

CHAPTER IV
THE BRITISH SALONICA FORCE

The British Army in Macedonia, officially known as the B.S.F. (British Salonica Force), originally consisted, like the French force, of units transported from the Dardanelles. Later it was reinforced by fresh divisions and became on autonomous army, although always under the superior command of the French C.-in-C. It comprised 2 Army Corps (the XII and the XVI), at first of 3 infantry divisions each (10th, 22nd, 26th, 27th, 28th, and 60th), the 228th Garrison Brigade and 2 cavalry brigades; in the course of 1917, as we have seen, two of these divisions—the 10th and the 60th—and the cavalry brigades were withdrawn and sent to Egypt, so that only four divisions remained, plus the garrison brigade, composed of men not fit for the front line. The artillery was strengthened in 1918 by a fairly large number of 6-in. guns and howitzers. Each division consisted as usual of 3 brigades, and each brigade at first of 4 battalions, but later on, when strengths had fallen very low, they were reduced to three. Each division had its own artillery, cavalry, engineers, and other services, and sometimes even the brigades were so provided, and there were in addition the army corps and army artillery and services, and the air force. The troops and services in the base area and on the lines of communication were under the Base Commandant; later a G.O.C. Lines of Communication was also appointed. As regards effectives, strengths were allowed to fall dangerously low, because the War Office was always somewhat hostile to the Macedonian enterprise—at a certain moment, as we shall see, a proposal was made that it should be withdrawn into the Salonica entrenched camp. Consequently, reinforcements were sent out grudgingly and in insufficient numbers, while disease and to a lesser extent war losses caused serious inroads into the strength of the B.S.F. During the last phase of the war the battalions rarely had more than 500 men each.

G.H.Q., Salonica, attempted to make good these losses by repeated “combings out,” sending to the battalions at the front all the men who could justly be regarded as fit, and reducing the number of British transport drivers, muleteers and soldiers attached to the base and lines-of-communication units to a minimum, and substituting them with Indians, Cypriots and Macedonian natives; a school for these new transport drivers was instituted at Lembet near Salonica and gave good results, while a great deal of useful work was accomplished by native labour battalions; the latter were also employed by other Allied armies, and there was a considerable amount of lively competition among the different forces to secure as large a share as possible of the available supply of native workers.

The British G.H.Q. was, as I have said, at Salonica, and Lieutenant-General Sir George Milne, who relieved General Mahon, was appointed Commander-in-Chief. He took orders from the C.A.A. only in the case of joint operations, and as long as General Sarrail was in Macedonia General Milne was his subordinate only in name, as he refused to tolerate any interference on the part of the former in whom he had no confidence, and whom he always suspected of political intrigue. General Sarrail on his part disliked General Milne, so that combined operations were practically impossible. General Milne was a man of uncommon intelligence, with extremely shrewd powers of observation and insight, and, unlike Sarrail, he was exclusively a soldier and did not take any interest in political matters. Our relations with him were always of the most cordial character. For General Mombelli he had a special regard, which was thoroughly reciprocated by the Italian Commander. He was a fine-looking man, a great lover of sport, a hard worker, a gentleman in every sense of the word; and he had a keen dislike for the atmosphere of Salonica as a hotbed of mean political and personal potins and petty jealousies. He resided a great part of the year at Guvesne, some 24 km. from Salonica, where he had established his advanced G.H.Q., equally handy for reaching either of his two Corps H.Q.’s. While staying at Guvesne he usually motored into Salonica every morning, except when he went out to the Corps H.Q. of the front lines.

I knew his three successive Chiefs of the Staff—General Gilman, a singularly attractive personality, with whom our relations were more than cordial, especially in the dark days of the spring of 1917, when after the collapse of Russia it was felt to be particularly important that the armies of the only two Monarchies left among the great Powers of the Entente should keep on the terms of the closest friendship. He said to me when I called to bid him farewell on his departure for Mesopotamia: “Our two Armies out here have always been on such friendly terms that I can see no reason why this state of things should not continue under my successor.” General Cory, in fact (a Canadian by birth), followed on General Gilman’s footsteps, and when he left to take command of the 27th Division, General Duncan, who was appointed M.G.G.S. in his place, showed himself if possible even more cordial; he is now British Military Attaché in Rome. The Intelligence and Operations branches were in charge of lieutenant-colonels, assisted by numerous distinguished officers, many of whom were reserve or temporary officers, especially those in “I,” chosen for their knowledge of the country and the local languages. In both branches I was always received in the most friendly manner, and kept informed of everything of interest, even of extremely confidential matters, strengths, details concerning unsuccessful actions, etc.

In dealing with the British one had, in a word, the sensation that one was among real Allies. And this does not only refer to the General Staff, but also to all the other branches and the commands of units at the front. The Quartermaster-General’s branch (Q), corresponding roughly to our Intendenza, was organized on essentially business lines, with all the methods in use in business houses; many of the officers attached to those services were in fact business men in private life. Archæologists were found particularly useful in “I” work, because their training rendered them thoroughly capable of weighing, sifting, and co-ordinating evidence, and deducing accurate or at least reasonable conclusions. If a larger proportion of men of this stamp had been employed in these services, not only in the British, but also in other armies, a great many unfortunate and sometimes disastrous mistakes would have been avoided. Unluckily, however, a number of Staff officers seemed to have no other qualification for their work than an extensive knowledge of the novels of William Le Queux and Phillips Oppenheim, or the adventures of Arsène Lupin, whose situations they attempted to realize in practice. At the head of the Q branch was the Deputy Quartermaster-General, of whom I knew two; the first was Major-General Travers-Clarke, afterwards Q.M.G. in France, the second and last Major-General Rycroft, both of them very capable officers and organizers. With the Adjutant-General’s branch, which dealt with personnel, I came less frequently into contact. There were also many offices and special services, among which that of the Military Secretary, whose duties comprised such matters as the promotion of officers, decorations, official visits and dinners and protocol generally; for a long time this position was held by the brilliant and agreeable Major Dudley-Carleton.

The British War Office made a point of selecting the officers for the B.S.F. with peculiar care, especially those destined for Staff appointments. As they would naturally come into frequent contact with foreign officers, it was considered very important not to send any officer to Macedonia who was not a thorough gentleman, so as to avoid unpleasant incidents; officers were chosen for these services not only for their technical ability, but also and above all for their high moral character and good manners, points to which insufficient importance was attached in some other armies. I cannot say that I ever came across a man of the “T.G.” type in any responsible post. British officers never caused scandals or provoked inter-Allied incidents, and cases of financial shortcomings were extremely rare and severely punished as soon as they were discovered. In the conduct of operations they showed, if not genius—in this the French were very superior—considerable efficiency and a thoroughly practical spirit. The most complicated transactions were carried out with the utmost simplicity—a couple of telephone calls, the sending of two or three “chits” (usually written in pencil), and the thing was done. In my position as liaison officer I had wide experience of the practical character of British military methods. We were constantly in need of assistance from the Allies for many of our services, especially in the matter of transport, because our expeditionary force was in certain respects incomplete, and according to the terms of the previous agreements, it was the C.A.A. that was bound to supply the deficiencies. The British were therefore under no obligation to assist us. But when we applied to the French we were bandied about from pillar to post before arriving at some useful result; very often we obtained nothing at all, or if we did obtain what we required we had first to overcome innumerable obstacles and refusals. The British on the contrary did everything in their power to satisfy our requests, and when they refused it was because the thing was really impossible, so that it was useless to go back on the matter. What was particularly agreeable about the British was their manner of rendering services as though it were the most natural thing in the world. I remember how on one occasion, I had to make an urgent application to the British G.H.Q. for some fifty motor ambulances to transport a large number of Italian wounded from the station to the hospitals after the action of May 1917; although I had received no instructions on the subject until late in the evening and some of the British officers responsible for that service had gone to bed, the whole matter was arranged without the slightest difficulty, and the next morning the motor ambulances were ready at the station punctual to the minute. I afterwards went to thank the A.Q.M.G. on behalf of our Command, and all that he replied was: “We’ve got to win the war together.”

Another instance of the admirable organization of the British services occurred during the great fire at Salonica. When the conflagration began to approach the port, the building containing the British Army telephone exchange was menaced, and in fact it caught fire soon after; in less than an hour the exchange was transferred to a place of safety, and at once began to function regularly.